


Sensory Overload

by autisticbisexualharley



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Gen, Sensory Overload, alex is the best siser in the universe, autistic!kara, kara is dealing with sensory overload and she hates her life a lot right now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-18
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-06-02 23:18:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6586918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autisticbisexualharley/pseuds/autisticbisexualharley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kara can usually handle this, but even now, after years of dealing with it, she has her moments of weakness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Kara is twelve years old the first time it happens, and she’s only been on earth for a few weeks. No one is exactly sure what to do.

  
“Why is everything so loud an- and bright? And so- so much? Eliza! Alex! _Please help me_!” Kara says, desperate for anything to get her out of this, or to at least know what was happening to her. She had felt things similar to this at home on Krypton but never like this. She must be dying, she thinks.

  
She’s ears are ringing loudly and her eyes hurt, she can’t focus on anything except how much pain she’s in and how she doesn’t want anything to touch her. This sweater she’s in is too itchy, she’s tried scratching herself but all that’s done is tear off her sleeve, she’s tried gripping a chair but it splinters beneath her hands. She doesn’t know what the horrible pain behind her eyes is until-

  
Lasers shoot from her eyes and through the ceiling of the kitchen and she hears things smashing and the only things she can get out of her mouth are screams and cries for help. Why is this happening? Why can’t anyone help her? Closing her eyes helps, but not much. She’s stopped destroying the house.

  
The sound of footsteps rushing toward her is deafening, she falls heavily to the floor with her hands clamped over her ears and she feels the tile crack under the force of her knee.

  
“Alex go turn off the air conditioner and find the noise cancelling earmuffs right now.” She hears Eliza say, and then she feels a hand on her arm trying to pull her hands away from her ears and this is too much for Kara, she needs her hands there, so she shoves the hand away and there is a shout of pain and a popping noise then one of the loud noises has turned off and she can focus on the pained voice trying to calm her down.

  
“Kara it’s okay, put these over your ears now, these will help.” Eliza says and she’s does as she is told and these things work better than her hands did. A blanket is thrown over her body too and it’s dark enough underneath it that she can open her eyes.

  
“I’m so so so sorry Eliza! This is all my fault oh my gosh I’m so sorry.” she’s crying for a different reason now, almost an hour later with most of her body still under the soft blanket and she’s wearing sunglasses and the earmuffs, which while not cancelling out everything, muffle things enough that her hearing is now only slightly above average instead of a wall of noise. She knows the popping sound she heard was Eliza’s shoulder dislocating and the kitchen is in ruins.

  
Alex puts an arm around her shoulder awkwardly in an attempt to comfort her and Eliza insists that she’s fine, that it’s not her fault and she should have seen this coming and prepared better for it.

  
“We took you in knowing who you were and we didn’t do enough to help you. And I’m so sorry Kara, that this happened to you.” Eliza says gently reaching over to stroke her hand, Alex has still said nothing but the arm around her is warm and nice and she leans into it, as carefully as she can so she doesn’t break yet another person who is only trying to help.

  
She learns it’s called sensory overload, and she also learns that it will never completely go away.

 

Kara remembers that day well, she remembers a few weeks later when Jeremiah gave her her glasses, they were life-savers and she wears them even now, less for her disguise and more for comfort. They didn’t solve everything, because she couldn’t go to class wearing earmuffs, she still had to take off from school some days because it was just _too much_. Just so she could sit in their soundproof basement in the dark. But with her new family’s support she learned how to deal and how to focus.

  
But even now, all these years later, she has her episodes. Though they are fewer and further between, and she can mostly deal with them on her own. When she can’t, Alex is almost always there to help. They happen for different reasons, and sometimes she can even feel them coming.

  
But today there was a solar flare and it hit her like a torpedo to the gut.

She’s already cracked her screen trying to send Alex a text.

  
“Alex i need u here now” she tries to send but it’s not sending. Her signal is out from the solar flare and she knows she’ll be stuck like this for hours. She knows if she tries to go to work she’d have to hide under her desk or wear her earmuffs.

  
Solar flares are a real hit or miss for her, sometimes she feels energized and powerful, even more awake than she normally is during the day. But other days, like today, she can barely stand because of all the input she’s receiving. She knows she’ll be able to focus eventually, but she won’t be in any fit state to go to work today, and she doesn’t have any way of letting anyone know. She thinks herself lucky that solar flares don’t happen often.

  
But the fact that they don’t happen often isn’t helping her now, because it’s happening and she’s already broken two lamps in her haste to turn them off, and knocked her purse hard into the wall, her purse that had those life-saving glasses. Which she heard snap.

  
With that, Kara knew her day would not go well.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex knows what she's doing

Alex has been trying to reach Kara all day, but with the solar flare she figures her phone just isn’t working. They had plans to watch movies together tonight and she just wants to make sure everything is still on, they both have busy lives and sometimes things get interrupted.

  
She looks at her watch and sees that it’s early enough that Kara may not have gone to work yet, and if she has left, she should still stop by there to pick up some papers she left last week. Kara gave her a key, for those “just in case” days, and she’s probably left it unlocked anyway. And she could buy a box of crullers and leave it on the counter for her.

“Kara, are you here? How many times do I need to tell you to lock your- oh my god, are you okay?” Alex says, nearly dropping the box and running over the the pile of blankets on the couch. She can hear Kara grumble a wordless reply from her pile.

  
“I’m coming under there okay?” And she sits next to her sister on the couch, trying to be as quiet as possible, setting the box gentle on the coffee table. When she’s like this, it’s best to be soft.

  
“No.” and the pile shifts over until the part where Alex thinks Kara’s head is is resting on her lap.

  
“Would it be too warm if someone else was under there?” she feels a nod and hears a soft “Mhm”.

  
“Do you want a donut? I got your favorite.” she says, patting the part of the blanket lump where her sisters head is. She feels shifting under the blanket until a hand breaks free, reaching toward the coffee table where she’s smells the box. Alex smiles and reaches over to the box and places it in the hand that quickly pulls it under the blankets.

  
“I’ve got some earplugs in my purse too, if you want to use them. I was going to go to the shooting range today, but I think you might need them more than I do. And do you have the bracelet Clark gave you? You said playing with it helps sometimes.” She says all of this slowly, already reaching for her purse to pull out the earplugs to put them in the hand that’s stuck itself back out from under the blankets. She remembers Kara telling her that the bracelet was forged in the heart of a dwarf star, and it’s so strong that she can fiddle around with it as much as she wants without having to focus on not crushing it. She also said it was very smooth.Kara hasn’t taken it off since she got it. Alex even got a matching one for herself, made of something much lighter, because Kara loves when they share things.

  
“Do you want me to stay here until you can fall asleep?” Alex will if she needs to, she’s always got a book in her purse, and she misses so few days at work that she’s sure she can convince J’onn that this is more important. Tomorrow, or whenever her signal comes back.

  
When she hears a very soft “Yeah” she’s already got her book out, ready to read it aloud in her most soothing voice. Which she does.

  
She’s three chapters in when she can feel Kara’s breathing even out. Closing the book she checks her phone to see that she has signal a signal again, and texts J’onn to tell him that she can’t come in to work, Kara needs her right now. And she turns off her ringer to be sure it won’t wake her up. When she see’s Kara’s phone on the floor with a cracked screen, she makes a note to ask the DEO about something Kara could use for when she can’t control her own strength.

  
Neither of them gets enough sleep anyway, Alex thinks as she starts to doze off into a peaceful nap.

  
They both needed a break sometimes.


End file.
